Praise
30 found this review helpful
March 26th, 2009For the money, can't be beat.
Not that I love everything about the table. The dust-bag, like all, is a joke. The knive takes some getting used to, and it did need some adjustments out of the box.Pros - sturdy, powerful, portable, accurate.Cons - Blade, dust bag, knife adjustment, won't take a standard Dado.This is not a contractor saw, they make professional grade tools for that. This is a home or medium duty shop saw. The included blade is not the best, so upgrade right away, and take the time to make the adjustments and align. This saw will handly almost anything you throw at it around the house, and not skip a beat.Sure, I'd love a better Dado set-up, but with the money I saved I'll buy a router and table and get more precise cuts anyway. I call it a win win.If you are looking for a heavy duty professional grade saw, this isn't it, but for the average user, it's more than enough.
Criticism
37 found this review helpful
June 20th, 2009Don't deviate from industry standard
I bought this table saw for around the house use and to do some wood working. It has plenty of power for my needs, is fairly light weight and does an all around okay job.Where it fails it fails miserably. Most notably in the groves for the miter gauge. Industry standard (and what you'll find in the Dewalt and Bosch table saw that Sears sells also) is that the groves are simple rectangles that are 3/4" wide by 3/8 deep. This table saw (and all others by craftsman except for the really high end) are 5/8" x 3/8" and have the addition of 4 of the most annoying little flanges that jut into the groove forcing any guide rail to be 'T' shaped.Apparently, and as far as I can tell, the addition of the flanges is so your miter gauge doesn't fall out in the event that gravity starts working backwards some day. Other than that unlikely event there is NO REASON WHAT SO EVER for these flanges to exist.The miter gauge that they provide is totally worthless with a full 1/16"+ play while in the groove. So precise and accurate cutting is very very difficult on this saw without some serious time commitment by the end user.To make matters even worse Craftsman doesn't make any higher end miter gauges that fits their own odd groove. Though they do make one that fits the industry standard. That in and of itself speaks volumes.This, to me, is very telling of how poorly thought out this tool is and why the flanges serve no purpose. If Craftsman wanted you to only buy Craftsman guide rails or improved miter gauges to use on their Craftsman table saws then wouldn't it follow that they actually sold improved parts to fit their own tool? But no, they don't stock such things for any price and at the same time prevent the end user from using other manufacturers.The end result is that if you intend to use any sort of cross cut jig, box jig or any other jig that requires any sort of accuracy you're going to have to have custom make all of your guide rails instead of just getting them off the shelf.It also means that you won't be able to use any of the high end, highly accurate miter gauges by third party companies like Kreg.Big, big pain the backside here. Craftsman really failed at this to the point that they should have to offer a written apology to all who bought this (and other's like it) table saw.If you're looking for a saw to do some rough carpentry, maybe some simple fence building or maybe even something to just mess around with, then this might be a great saw for you. If you plan to do any sort of box or furniture making, buy something else, anything else and you'll save yourself a lot of headaches.Sorry Craftsman, you did a really bad job on this.